David Baldacci is one of the world's bestselling thriller authors, with over 130 million copies of his books in print.
His latest book The Fallen sees the return of one of his best-known characters, FBI agent Amos Decker, who has perfect recall following a traumatic brain injury, with the result that he cannot even forget bad memories.
In this, the fourth book in the series, Decker finds himself in a town in western Pennsylvania where he discovers some murders. The current opioid crisis in America is one of the themes dealt with in the book.
"Every book that I write, I like to tell an exciting tale, but I like to address some sensitive issues and this one has been on my mind for a while," David says of the inspiration for the story.
"Last year 70,000 Americans overdosed on opioids, so I want to show that this is a huge problem that we should look at, and right now we're not really facing it in this country."
"When otherwise good people are thrust into a situation in order to survive, sometimes they turn to bad things to do it."
The Fallen is David's 36th adult novel, but he has also written for children, including a fantasy series for Scholastic. He compares writing thrillers to putting a jigsaw puzzle together.
"For me, I love jigsaw puzzles because you have to keep all the details in your head and every little action and fact is important. You have to be very precise and careful about how you lay out the clues and where your characters go. I spend a lot of time on creating the characters, making them vulnerable and human just like people in real life."
"I think writers have to be great observers. Good writers are watchers, and I just love to people-watch and eavesdrop on conversations. I love to look at a scene out in the real world and imagine if I added a couple of little facts here and there, what potential I could realise from that."
David began writing early on but found that he "couldn't make a living out of it" for a long time. He started out writing short stories, but says "you can't make any money from writing short stories, at least not in the United States."
He then turned to writing screenplays, before finding success with his first mystery thriller novel Absolute Power, which he says changed his life. It became a number one bestseller and has also been made into a movie.
Despite writing so many books, he says it's still as much of a challenge as ever to create something really good.
"Once you think you know what you're doing as a writer, you might as well hang it up because you've lost your edge."
"I treat every novel like it's my first novel, I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm terrified I can't bring the magic again. That is a great recipe for a long career."
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